“It makes a difference?”
He nodded. “Everything makes a difference. When we have time, I’ll explain things to you, but for now, you’re just going to have to trust in everything I say to you.”
“You’ve gotten me this far. It does seem like something out of a science fiction novel, but sometimes, that very first time, when I was being taken out of the apartment, from there to the airport, when I woke up in the jet, I remember some of it.”
Taviano stared down into her upturned face. That beloved face. He could hardly remember anymore when he’d come to love her. Maybe from that very first moment when their shadows had connected and he’d felt that jolt of absolute awareness of her go through his body. Or when his chest hurt so damn bad when she spoke, like a key turning in a lock, opening a passageway he’d kept closed and barricaded, even protected by barbed wire, but somehow with just the soft musical notes of her voice she’d found her way in. It could have been when she’d awoken screaming and fighting on the plane, a little warrior woman, ready to battle a hundred men if necessary, her eyes looking into his, terrified but determined.
He’d drown in all that beauty. In all that feminine warrior-woman fight. He loved that. He loved that she would have taken him on in a heartbeat. She’d softened. Relaxed. Not for the others—for him. Looking right at him. Recognizing him the way he did her. He framed her face with both hands. She’d given him this—that trust—even back then, when he hadn’t yet earned it. There had been those times she fought herself and fought him. Not because she didn’t believe in him but because she wouldn’t believe in herself.
“Before we go back into the shadows, Nicoletta, you have to know, I know I was born for the sole purpose of being that man who will stand in front of you. When you’re there in that dark place, where it feels like a thousand demons are tearing you apart, know I’m there with you. Always, tesoro, because you are my treasure and my only. You’ll always be that for me. You’ll never be alone there, even if it feels that way. In your mind, reach for me and you’ll find me.”
He took her mouth. Those lips. That mouth. She tasted fresh and clean. She was his everything, and she tasted that way, as if she had been created especially for him. Sin and innocence blending together, an incomparable rush. He kissed her gently, wanting her to feel loved. Knowing she would need that in the cold of the shadows, something light to hold on to when the demons came to tear her apart.
He wanted to be gentle for her, knowing what she’d suffered. Knowing what had been done to her. He’d sat through her nightmares hundreds of times, listening in the dark to her screams, feeling the tears on his own face when she couldn’t cry. She didn’t know he was there with her at first, in the beginning. He knew she would have been embarrassed. As it was, she was humiliated that he knew what had been done to her. Then later, when she did know because he couldn’t bear it any longer, she had used him as a punching bag, and he’d let her. Often, he’d held her, rocked her, let her learn to cry all over again on those long, sleepless nights.
He tried to keep his kisses under control, but they ignited together, two matchsticks, creating an explosion. Flames began to lick at his skin, dance in his veins, smolder in his gut and rise higher and higher, spreading from his groin until his entire body seemed to burst into a wild inferno. It was crazy and it was exhilarating. Only Nicoletta could do that to him. He was always in control. He’d thought it had been the alcohol before. He knew now it wasn’t so. She slid her arms around his neck and kissed him back, her mouth moving against his, her body melting into his as if she’d caught fire, too, and they shared the same skin, the same never-ending passion.
He lifted his head, reluctantly breaking them apart, breathing deeply, forcing air into his lungs when he wanted everything Nicoletta, including that fragrance that was all her. “You ready for this? Because we’re going to get Clariss back. I’ll need you to make certain that whatever happens there, Clariss doesn’t see me do anything to harm anyone. That’s more important than anything else, Nicoletta.”
He tucked her wild hair behind her ear and tracked her cheekbones with the pads of his fingers. He loved her soft skin and the way she had such perfect bone structure—at least to him, it was perfection. He admitted to himself that he was very enthralled with everything about her.
“I wouldn’t mind doing a few of them in myself,” she said, sticking her chin in the air. “Seriously, Taviano, you’re very protective, but you don’t understand . . .”
“Your number one goal is always to protect the family. Our reputation must be protected at all times. Our cousins just put themselves on the line for you, me and your friends. We always establish alibis so there is no question that we are innocent if someone points a finger at us. Clariss has been taken by this gang. We don’t know why. We followed and attempted to get her back. If some of them turned on each other when we freed her, we know nothing about that. Do you understand, Nicoletta, because if you don’t, I’ll get the cousins back here to take you with them and I’ll do this alone.”
He poured absolute conviction into his voice. There was no backup when it came to protecting the family, and she had to realize it. No matter how much he loved her and wanted to give her the world, he wouldn’t budge on that. It was a rule the family followed—every branch of the family followed. Every member had to be protected. He was willing to risk his career for her but not his family’s safety.
Nicoletta nodded, looking him in the eyes. “I understand. I didn’t think about that, Taviano. I just despise them so much. I need to understand how all this works. I don’t really know what you’re talking about, but I’m trying. I’ll do whatever needs to be done. I’m just so scared for Clariss.”
Taviano was well aware Nicoletta didn’t know much about the family business. How could she? She might be considered family, but she wasn’t privy to what they did or how their business was carried out. His brothers and sister knew that Taviano planned to claim her, to marry her and bring her in, but until that happened, she couldn’t know, and in some cases, a partner might never know everything.
“We’ll talk about this more when we have time,” Taviano promised. “Are you ready for this? You can’t let go. It’s going to be very intense. You have to hold on even tighter than before. You were doing great, learning to use your body by following mine.”
“I can do it.”
He could see the reluctance but also hear the determination. His woman was a fighter. He took out the burner phone he’d gotten from his cousin, the one he’d programmed Clariss’s number into. He knew if he called Clariss’s number, one of the Demons would answer, and that was the point.
He punched in the number, and after several rings, Clariss’s voice, very shaky, responded. Nicoletta started to answer, but Taviano shook his head, scowling at her.
“Clariss. Drago here.” He hoped she would remember the bodyguard’s name and realize no member of the gang would know who he was. “Where are you, babe? I’ll come pick you up. Nicoletta said you were separated at the concert.”
There was the sound of a scuffle, a muffled scream, and then a man took over. “You want this bitch?”
Taviano counted to ten before responding. “Who is this?”
“Does it matter?” the voice barked curtly.
“You have my girl, it matters,” Taviano snapped. “What the hell is she doing with you?”
“Where’s Nicoletta?”
“Why would I care? You got my girl. You don’t want to mess with me.”
There was a snort on the other end of the line and Clariss screamed, clearly in pain. Nicoletta stepped toward Taviano and the phone, one hand over her mouth to keep from crying out herself.
“You don’t want to mess with me,” the man snarled. “I’m Iker, vice president of the Demons, and you’re so screwed. You want this bitch of yours back in one piece, you’d better find Nicoletta and bring her to the warehouse
on South Street. You have an hour to get here.” He added the exact address.
“I don’t know this city. How the hell do I do that? And Nicoletta’s off somewhere partying. I have to find her first.”
“The longer you give me with your bitch, the more fun I have with her,” Iker threatened, laughing, and he ended the call.
Nicoletta caught at Taviano’s arm, and when he winced, her eyes widened, remembering his injury. “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine what it must be like to go into the shadows with a bullet wound. I know what they’re doing to Clariss right now. They’re horrible people. We have to get there fast. I don’t care what you have to do, or how dangerous it is to travel that way, just please get us there, Taviano.”
“You don’t know what’s going on there, Nicoletta. They don’t know what’s really happening with us. She’s all they have left to bargain with to get you back. They can’t torture her, or even pass her around, or they take a chance at losing her. They already have to tell Valdez that they lost you and his right-hand man. They don’t have Pia or Bianca. They don’t have the bodies of their own men and they don’t know if those men are dead or alive. They aren’t going to take too many chances with Clariss just to satisfy some idiotic urge. They have other women if it comes to that.”
Nicoletta took several deep breaths, trying to get herself under control. “All right. Are we going right now?”
“I’m just going to ditch the phone, and then we’re gone.” He broke it apart and scattered it throughout the various garbage containers, in the bedrooms, bathrooms and hallway, knowing the maids would clean up.
Stepping into the mouth of the widest, slowest shadow tube, he pulled Nicoletta into his arms and waited until she wrapped herself tightly around him. He felt the tremors running through her, but knew if he suggested again that she stay, she wouldn’t. He dropped his chin onto her head.
“Press your body as tight as you can into mine. Feel every movement.”
“Sometimes it feels as if we have no skin or bones,” she admitted reluctantly.
“I know, piccola, the sensation is a horrible one, but just keep pressing tightly to me, and no matter how strange we feel, try to follow every movement of my body with yours, even if it feels as if we aren’t even there. Keep your eyes closed and breathe me in. You’ll recognize my smell, right, Nicoletta? You’ll always know my scent, the way I do yours.”
He waited for her to nod for him. She took another deep breath, her gaze clinging to his, that trust there in spite of her fear. Dio, he loved her all the more for that trust. He knew he wanted to earn it more every single day. He wanted to deserve it.
She’d been through the fires of hell when she’d been so young, and yet she’d come out the other side, and here she was, standing with him on unfamiliar ground, doing something most people would run screaming from, looking him in the eye and giving consent when she knew it was going to hurt like hell. More, she was doing this for her friend, to be there for Clariss when she knew what could possibly be happening to her. That moved him all the more.
He bent his head to hers and brushed his lips very, very gently over hers. “I knew the moment I saw your courage on that plane, Nicoletta. I knew you, what was inside you, and I knew I had to learn to be man enough to deserve to call you mine. I swear I’ll get us through this.”
He tightened his hold on her and waited until she pressed her face tightly into his rib cage and he felt the flutter of her long lashes as she closed her eyes. Her arms locked, and he stepped deeper into the tube. At once it took them, pulling them apart, tearing at their bodies to send them hurtling through like an underground subway system. He had to remain alert to exchange one shadow for another, making his way through the city to their destination.
Every rider had to have the ability to map out any city and keep those coordinates in their heads at all times. They couldn’t get turned around or lost. They moved so fast even in the slowest shadows that it would be impossible to make guesses; they had to know exactly where they were going ahead of time.
He made several leaps from one shadow to the next, trying to avoid the smaller feeder tubes that would have gotten him to the warehouse Iker had instructed him to go to, but those were so fast and so hard on the body that he didn’t want to chance taking Nicoletta into one again. As it was, they would still have to ride one more time to the airport, back to the plane. Four trips in one evening. He couldn’t imagine what that was going to do to her. He should have never allowed this, but she was right—if Clariss had been gang-raped, she would need a woman and a friend.
The city flew by, lights and cars and colors flashing, along with various sounds blasting and rumbling through his head. He kept his arms tight around his woman, making certain that when he stepped from one shadow to the next, or had to make sharp turns, he did so as carefully as he could so that there was no chance of her slipping away from him. Those first fast turns in the feeder tubes had terrified him. He’d almost lost his grip on her, and he knew once he did, it would have taken a miracle to find her. She would have gone one way and him another.
The warehouse was coming up fast and he slowed their progress, letting their bodies catch up. Even so, they’d traveled a great distance and the sensation was sickening, even to him. He was a very experienced rider. He’d been in and out of the shadows from an early age. His mother had demanded all of them start moving in the shadows when they were as young as five. Stefano went with them, but they were able to condition their bodies to the continual pull of the shadows on them as they sped through. In the beginning, they stepped in and then stepped out. Nicoletta had been thrown in and expected to acclimate.
He took them inside the warehouse. From the outside it seemed smaller than it actually was. Inside, it appeared cavernous. His family owned several warehouses in industrial parts of Chicago. All had legitimate trades in them. If they were raided or the cops came around at any time and looked at any of the businesses the Ferraros actually owned themselves, the bookkeeping was impeccable and aboveboard. Nothing was ever out of place.
If there was a hint of criminal activity in any of the companies renting space from them, they terminated the lease immediately if an investigation proved the illegal endeavor was in fact taking place. The results were handed over to the cops. The Ferraros didn’t allow anyone to commit crimes on their properties, yet Taviano knew how easy it was to hide that kind of activity if one wanted to get away with it. His family, more than once, had to interrogate a prisoner in one of their warehouses and then make that prisoner disappear without a trace. There could be no hint of that man ever being on their property, or them being connected to him in any way.
Taviano half expected the warehouse to be set up as a legitimate business. The Demons had been around for a long time, and Benito Valdez was considered a savvy leader. He’d gone to prison, but the cops hadn’t gotten him on any of the charges they’d wanted to take him down on, like murder—which they knew he’d committed—or trafficking, or drugs, or gun running; they’d gotten him on tax evasion. He’d served a short sentence, and while he was in, he’d continued to run his gang and continued to grow his chapters.
Under Valdez’s leadership, the Demons had quickly risen to become one of the most feared gangs, taking territory from other gangs, swallowing smaller gangs and taking over their enterprises: drugs, prostitutes, trafficking and anything else they had. It was join with them or die. They didn’t give much quarter. Valdez kept his chapters in line by sending his trusted lieutenants when he deemed it necessary. They had no compunction about putting a bullet in the head of any president of a chapter that wasn’t in compliance with Valdez’s dictates. He was ruthless with the members of his organization, yet just as generous with his favors.
The warehouse was anything but a legitimate business, and Taviano could see that Iker had his own side operation separate from his local president, Tonio Valdez, Benito’s brother. He must hav
e been really upset when Tonio had been appointed the president in Los Angeles and had taken over his position.
Armando Lupez hadn’t come to Los Angeles on vacation. Benito Valdez must have sent him there to bring Iker into line. That told Taviano a couple of things immediately. Iker had an ego, and he didn’t like either of the Valdez brothers telling him what to do, especially Benito when he was in New York. Armando wouldn’t have come alone. He would have one or two others with him as well. But why had he been slumming at a concert, then?
Jorge was most likely one of Iker’s men. He’d run straight back to the warehouse. That meant somewhere among the men with Iker, there were a couple, at least, from New York. They would be the ones with the real authority, although Iker wouldn’t necessarily hold to that.
Iker was a thug, and prior to Tonio Valdez taking over, Iker had run his chapter that way. There was no finesse at all. He most likely had men still very loyal to him. Benito might be into raping women and doing whatever he wanted as far as showing he was all powerful to his men, but he kept his shit tight when it came to his business. Iker wanted the neighborhood and the local cops to fear him. The warehouse was a place of obvious torture. The tools were there. There were bloodstains on the concrete floor. Meat hooks hung from the ceiling. This was a deliberate show to any who might oppose Iker and his men. It was a legitimate cop’s dream. There had to be enough evidence to convict Iker and his men of any number of crimes.
Clariss was seated in a leather chair off to one side of the room, very close to what appeared to be an office. She was hunched into herself, knees drawn up, her hair over her face and her hands covering her chin and mouth as if trying to keep from making any noise. She wasn’t tied up, and he couldn’t see any blood on her. She didn’t look as if she had been sexually assaulted, although it was coming. Armando had most likely made it very clear that she was needed to get Nicoletta back, and whoever he’d left behind with Iker was most likely the one threatening her. That didn’t mean they hadn’t knocked her around to intimidate her. Men like Iker and Armando believed women were nothing and that they had every right to do whatever they wanted to them.
Shadow Flight Page 7
